The past couple of days I've had my first 4 DMT trips. I like to start small, so the doses were between 15-25mg smoked with a GVG (even though I can't compare with anything else, it's great). I'd like to share my experiences before moving on to higher doses.

The very first trip was still the most intense, although the dosage was the same as the others. A couple of moments after inhaling it felt as if my head were imploding. I've read this description in other people's trip reports, but the most interesting to me was the feeling that I've been here before! I've had this feeling before several times during my sleep. I quite often have lucid dreams, but these 'head implosions' most often precede quite short very intense dreams over which I have almost no control, very much like little psychedelic trips.

I must say I was quite overwhelmed by the entire experience: I closed my eyes because visuals were too intense and just hoped it would be over. However, when I started "just letting it happen" and enjoying it was already pretty much over.. I was left mostly confused.

The following trips I was much better prepared for what was about to come, and they were much more pleasant and not overwhelming. I was moved by the intense beauty of things. Still it's very hard to say anything about the first (most intense?) minutes: before I know what's going on I'm already coming down.

Overall I find DMT to be a "difficult" drug, mostly because of its incredibly fast onset and shortness of duration. My experience with psychedelics is otherwise limited to psilocybin mushrooms (about 10-15 times) and LSD (2 times). With these substances there is a definite build-up to the plateau, while DMT just launches you right in it. Also it is much easier to hold on to a thought and integrate it, simply because it lasts so much longer. When I look back to my DMT trips they are almost hard to recall, a fleeting memory. But they do leave me with a feeling that there's more out there.

Before I move on to a higher dose, perhaps some of you more experienced some advice on how to deal with the quickness of it all? How to deal with the onset? Or do I have to approach it very differently from LSD/mushrooms?

If you take harmalas, the onset is slightly delayed (by like 15-30 seconds ) and the duration will be slightly extended. Also the more you journey, the easier it will be to remember what happened. There will always be a bit of amnesia, but I think that should be expected. Just think about it like this: you go to see a really far-out sci-fi flick that had amazing, really out-there CGI. Now when you leave the theater, sure you may be able to conjure up some rough visuals and audio by memory, but you probably wouldn't do the greatest job of remembering that either. Much of what we remember is based on expectation, as opposed to remembering it the way it really was. If you haven't journeyed much, you have weak expectations.

Hello CLT, and welcome here to the Nexus!

I personally had only a few DMT breakthrough experiences so far. However, other more experienced travelers sometimes suggest to have a voice-recorder at hand, and start talking the experience out as soon as they return back into "this" world. Memories of the "other" world tend to fade very quickly...

The voice-recorder method has worked for me, allowed me to "remember"/"recall" more.
It has also worked greatly for my mushroom travels.

All the best on your travels,
Michal

Thanks for your replies!
I had another trip yesterday, this time I took a little bit more (30 mg), although I took it in in two times separated by a couple of minutes. I used my phone as a voice recorder.. but I was too amazed to say anything . However it still helped me understand a couple of things.

I took about 3 hits, and the - now familiar - 'DMT buzzing' began. It grew much more intense this time and bifurcated into several different hums, buzzes and chirps. I've never experienced aural 'hallucinations' on any other psychedelic. The sound preoccupied me and I wasn't able to pay attention to anything else. Even though the sound itself was unpleasant, I found it interesting more than overwhelming or scaring. After what seemed like an eternity I turned on some music to see if it would make the sound go away. Immediately the whole experience changed. The buzz was gone and replaced by a beautiful soundscape (Carbon Based Lifeforms) and I was able to focus on other things. Later, when listening to the voice recorder, it turned out a car alarm went off just after I took the hits , what aural terror.. I tried to walk around my room, but staying balanced turned out to be quite hard as the floor seemed to spiral in and out of existence. I sat down again and looked at my plants. Instead of the angry faces I saw last time I saw an insect-like form staring at me. The effects seemed to slowly fade and I decided to see if there was any DMT left in my pipe (this turned out to be only 6 minutes after the first inhalation as the sound of my lighter told me). I took a big hit and yes, there was definitely still some left.. What followed I find extremely hard to describe/remember. I focused more on my thinking than on what I saw, and although I remember having some incredible thoughts I barely recall them.. While the effects slowly faded I was left with a very strong euphoria but also some sort of melancholia as the memories of the experience seemed to fade while I was thinking about them.

All in all this experience was much more meaningful/easier to remember. Although I still have trouble recalling my thoughts, at least I still remember most of the visuals which aid me. Perhaps I shouldn't try to care as much about remembering everything and rather just be 'in the moment'. It's similarity to dreaming again seems amplified: I have the same 'forgetting things while thinking about them' when I wake up sometimes.